December 18, 2021 • 54 mins
Long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, George Lucas allowed the Star Wars Holiday Special to be made. What happened on the night of November 17, 1978 can never be fully explained, but we make our best effort in our annual special edition of SYSK. May the force be with us all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's that time, everybody. It's time to kick off the
holiday season with the annual playing of our episode on
the patently terrible Star Wars Holiday Special. I hope the
select finds you merry and bright, cozy and happy, filled
with the holiday spirit, and I hope you guys are
all having a wonderful Christmas time. Welcome to Stuff you
(00:27):
should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
Chuckers Bryant and Jerry Jerome Roland. Uh. Who's the Wookie mother? Yeah? Mala,
(00:50):
that was the Wookie wife. Oh and mother? Yeah? Sure,
Chewbacca's bomb is not with them any longer. She left.
She was not about to appear in that she went
up the window. I'm excited about this. I have to
say we should say Happy Star Wars Day. Yeah. Today
is um December. Um, I have my opening night tickets?
(01:13):
Do you really sure? Wow? You know? I do you
into it? Oh? Yeah, well I will definitely go see
it in the theater, But um, why won't be the
opening night? Sure? I've gotten really adept at like ignoring spoilers,
people talking about stuff all like, so I can I
could conceivably see this movie a month after it comes
(01:35):
out and still going fresh. It's I'm an ostrich. Yeah
you black yourself out. Yeah you go dark? Do I
make myself go to sleep face? You go to the
dark side. I've been there a while now. Uh. Well,
Happy Star Wars Day though, I'm sure that I think
this pairs nicely with Christmas Star Wars Day. It's all
(01:57):
come together. Yes, Um, we already missed Life Day though,
so happy belated Life Day. Are they celebrating it this year? November? Yeah,
but it's every three years. Mm hmm, our cane man job. Okay,
so it's every three years, started in nineteen seventy eight.
Let's do the math, shall we? Mm hmmm? Quick math break.
(02:21):
I believe that two thousand fourteen was the last Life Day. Man,
we just missed, and then again in twenty seventeen. Okay,
so seen, we'll celebrate Life Day. Will put on our
red robes, are ultralong, straight ironed wigs, and we'll celebrate
Life Day the way it was meant to. Yes, and
if you have no idea what we're talking about, we
(02:42):
are talking about Life Day, which is a celebration. Uh
that Wookies in the Star Wars universe have every three years. Yeah,
it's like their Christmas or the Kanza their tech. Supposedly,
it's sort of like Earth Day two. They celebrate the
diversity of their ecosystem, uh, and also remembrance of the dead,
(03:02):
and they also give gifts. They're like the Finns basically. Yeah,
it's a it's a very interesting part of the Star
Wars canon. It is, and it's almost entirely made up,
dashed off you could possibly say, by um, George Lucas
in the seventies. Um, And it's the basis of what
is become derided as like one of the worst things
(03:25):
that ever happened to the Star Wars galaxy. Well, not
only that, one of the worst things ever aired on television. Yeah,
with this galaxy. Yeah, at first that sounds like hyperbole, like,
come on, it's because it was Star Wars, we had
high expectations. But it's really that bad. Yeah. The people
who say that haven't seen even a second of it. Yeah. Yeah, However,
(03:45):
I watched it, uh when I was a kid. Then
again this week, and you watched it twice this week. Yeah,
I watched it last night and this morning. There's something
about it. It's mesmerizing. It really is. It's one of
those things that you start watching it and you want
to turn it off, but you want to see just
how absurd it can get. Almost Yeah, and it starts absurd,
(04:08):
it stays absurd. In the middle, it's increasingly more absurd,
it gets a little less absurd, finishes super absurd. Yeah,
it's just a train wreck in every single sense of
the word to bottom. It's extraordinarily difficult to overstate how
bad this is. And some people, you know, in researching this,
you read about it, you read descriptions of these things,
(04:29):
and it just can't possibly be gotten across until you
see it. So luckily, as we will see, you can
go onto YouTube and watch it, and you may even
enjoy this episode more if you pause, go spend two
hours watching this thing, and then come back and laugh
along with us. Yeah, there's a great Over the years,
there have been many segments of it on YouTube from
(04:51):
badly dub VHS tapes, but there's one really pretty good
version of it in full um brought to you by
w h I O Dayton, Ohio, Channel seven. Because that
flashes up on the screen periodically. Man, it is high quality.
It looks good. It has to basically be the copy
(05:12):
that the actual UM affiliate broadcast. Yeah, it's like that,
that quality compared to the other stuff floating around on YouTube,
clearly recorded on a pc R, which we're really expensive,
very expensive. I did some calculating on west Egg UM,
so the average VCR went for about a thousand dollars.
There were brand new it's amazing thousand dollars in ninety
(05:33):
eight money, so they're about thirty eight hundred dollars in
two thousand fourteen money. Luckily, there were some rich people
out there recording this stuff, and the wealthy have saved
us all again yet again, as they always do. Uh.
We need to shout out some articles that we use
for this. There's great a great article in Vanity Fair
called the Han Solo Comedy Our exclamation Point by Frank D. Jacomo.
(05:59):
And then there's the Star Wars Holiday Special was the
worst thing on television ever by So when we kind
of know Alex Pasternak uh from Motherboard, Yeah, which is
uh not wired, it's uh vice. We wrote a little
bit for Motherboard back then and we had a call
with that, like we're like old Motherboard vets basically and
(06:19):
the one there one more, there was another one and
I don't know who wrote this one chuck. Uh, yeah,
it's the titles the Star Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas
wants to smash every copy of with a sledgehammer, which
was a famous quote, uh supposedly at a convention by Lucas. Yes,
which is not correct. He didn't ever say that. No, okay,
(06:39):
that that sounded like something that people made up. Yes,
but if you go on the internet you will quickly
believe that he did. Apparently didn't, so let's I'm sure
he felt that way though, clearly, because he did appear
on Robot Chicken and I think two thousand five on
the Therapist Couch talking about how much he hated the special. Alright,
so let's set the background, shall we Shall we go
back to nineteen seventy summer, getting the old way back machine.
(07:03):
All right, let's do it. All right, here we are,
there's Waterson. Yeah, I'm just a little six year old
excited about Star Wars. I am. I've just turned one. Yes,
you don't know what's up yet. I please forgive me
if I urinate myself, no problem. Ok Uh, So what
(07:26):
has happened is Star Wars has become a huge, huge hit,
seemingly out of nowhere, establishing George Lucas is one of
the brilliant young minds and filmmaking. Even though it was
in his first movie, it was his first huge, huge
breakout hit. Oh yeah, for sure, talk don't mean to
talk about a breakout hit like no one had ever
seen anything like it before two thousand one had come
(07:47):
out in the late sixties. But it wasn't it's still
it still isn't accessible to all audiences, you know. Yeah,
it's kind of cerebral film. Yeah, it's not an adventure movie.
This was this is like basically swa s buckling on
the screen, but you know, in a galaxy far far away.
Star Wars just changed everything and it came on just
like a hammer um and a new hope. By the way, yes,
(08:11):
and then then we're gonna get stuff wrong, nerds, So yes,
just go ahead and get your little fingers ready to
email us. Like if it wasn't driven home that I'm
not a nerd by the fact that I don't have
opening night tickets or any tickets yet, give me a break,
and by proxy chuck to okay, thank you. So, um,
it's it's hard to stay how great Star Wars was
(08:32):
in everyone's mind, right. Bill Murray came out with that
lounge singer Star Wars thing. It was everywhere and if
you if you just listen to the lyrics of it,
he's really it's just Bill Murray singing about how much
Star Wars is awesome. Right. So, by the following year, Um,
George Lucas was he wanted to figure out a way
(08:53):
to keep audiences just engaged with the whole Star Wars
franchise that he was just starting to build. But he
knew the Empire Strikes Back was a couple more years out,
so um he I think he was approached by some
TV executives who said, have you considered doing some sort
of TV special? They're all the rage right now. We
(09:13):
have a we have a graphic that's really awesome that
we set aside just for TV specials here at CBS.
Why don't you let us let's get together and do
a Star Wars special. That's right. Producers Gary Smith and
Dwight him On, Uh, we're working over at CBS, and
they said, this is a great way to keep the
spirit alive. While you're making your other movie, maybe move
(09:36):
some more toys. Yeah, which George Lucas got to. So
it was right before Thanksgiving, and he said, there'll be
a lot of people watching TV um pre holiday season,
or I guess in the holiday season. Well, the weekend
before Thanksgiving, it's like everybody's shopping, sitting around family like
waiting to actually do stuff. That's perfect time to broadcast
(09:56):
something on TV. So Lucas says, all right, let's do
the US. I don't have a ton of time, but
how about this. I'll get I'll get a story together,
and then you can go hire a whiz bang team
of of veteran writers and producers and directors whatever genre
you think is appropriate. And those are the words that
will haunt George Lucas to his grave. Yeah, so Lucas said,
(10:19):
here's my idea. I wanted to be based um on Wookiees,
and I wanted to take place on their home planet
of Kizuok or wikie planet. See is that how you
say kazuk. That's how it's pronounced in the episode the
Holiday Special, but it's also pronounced different ways. Other times.
I would have pronounced that cassey e got spell it
(10:43):
k a s h y y y k, which I mean,
I guess that sounds like Chewbuck is planet sure also
called G five, Wilkie planet see or Eaton is a
mid rim planet. Right. So the whole reason, apparently that
George Lucas was interested in featuring the Keys was it
is what we in show business call low hanging fruit.
(11:05):
The reason why it was low hanging fruit was because
they had just established the different scenes that would make
the cut for Empire Strikes Back and uh, what how
did you pronounce it? Again? Kazook. Kazook had not made
the cut. Uh. Even prior to this, apparently for a
new hope, George Lucas had whipped up a forty page
what's known as the Wookie Bible. It's like a forty
(11:27):
page supplement that's all about Kazook and Wookies and Chewbacca
and his family and everything about Wookie doom. Right, So
he's like, I've got this thing already, you know established
I love Wookies. Um, they didn't make the cut. I'm
a little sad about that. They're not gonna Kazuok is
not going to show up in an Empire strikes Back.
(11:48):
Let's let's build the entire special around wookies. It's basically
the one demand me George Lucas has that's it. I'll
be totally hands off from this point on which you
kind of was he totally wasn't. It was actually this
experience that apparently taught him to be the very hands
on a person that he is famous for being. It
came out of this Christmas special. Absolutely he was burned
(12:11):
and um had an iron grip after that on everything.
So here's some some of the folks behind it. Bruce Valanche,
famous uh TV writer. You probably seen him on Hollywood Squares.
Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas pinch On for a while?
I don't know, or was Thomas pinch On on Hollywood Squares?
I have no idea. I may be confabulating some stuff confounding. Yeah,
(12:35):
there's some kind of some sort going on. It sounds
like it. So Valanche was hired as a writer. A
guy named Lenny Rips was hired as a writer who
has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article he does.
His first quote was we were really excited because this
is Star Wars. How could it lose? Famous last words?
(12:56):
Who else was hired. There was a husband and wife team,
the welch Is, who are the parents of of folk
singer Gillian Welch. I'm a big fan of and I
had no idea that her parents they were producers slash
songwriters of the day. They were big on the variety
show scene, which would turn out to be a really
(13:16):
key cog in this whole experience. So I feel like,
right about here, Jerry should insert a needle coming off
of a record sound effect. Okay, thanks Jerry. So Chuck,
you just said singer songwriters. What would that have to
do with Star Wars. Yeah, well, actually, in this Star
Wars holiday special, for those of you hadn't seen it,
(13:39):
there are musical numbers. They decided from the outset that
there should be musical numbers. And the reason that they
decided that there should be musical numbers is because the
people who sold George Lucas and at the time it
was start the Star Wars Corporation was what it was
called um On. The idea of doing this TV special
was that everyone would love a variety show. Yeah, it
(14:00):
was the seventies. Great idea, let's do a variety show.
The problem was this apparently George Lucas didn't watch enough TV,
and he also overly trusted people who talked to him
because by yes, variety shows had dominated television for over
ten years, but it had come to an end. It
was getting stale. Yeah, we're talking to Carol Burnett show,
(14:23):
one of my favorite had just been canceled after eleven seasons.
Big Sonny and Chair had just had its last season.
I mean, what else, like he Hall was he? I
was still going on, probably still on solid golden yet
to come on and take up the mantel that that
would never variety show. Oh that was a little bit
(14:44):
and there was talking in between the songs. Remember the
Mandrell's Sisters show. I never watched that one. Well, it's
with that country chic thing that happened. Yeah, it was
a big deal in the it's kind of happening again.
I think, Oh, because of that dude, the guy who
won all the c m A Awards. I don't know,
he's like, he's he came along. He's like actually country.
(15:07):
His dad's like a coal miner for real from Kentucky.
I think I know you mean Chris was something. Yeah,
he's he is good. He's come along and been like,
what are you guys doing. Well, there's a revival in
like good country music. Again, that's like in the tradition
of Merle, Haggard and Cash and I guess that's probably
where the country sheet came from, because there was actually
good country going on. Yeah, Johnny Cash out a variety show,
(15:28):
did he really? Yeah? I knew they did, like a
Sunday singing thing like out in Virginia. Yeah, he had
his own variety show was actually pretty good. There's some
like really great performances. Do you know how many nerds
are like, get back to Star Wars? I know, I'm
so sorry. All right, So the Variety Show is is
dying sort of, and so they figure, what a great
time to take the biggest movie property on the planet
(15:51):
and wedge it into the variety show milieu. I don't
know if wedge is the right word. I think maybe
uh nestle it in there and then start hitting it
with the blunt edge of an axe until it mashes
into that crevice. You know. Because this is the time
when Fantasy Island had just started, um Mork and Mindy
(16:12):
was about to change things. Charlie's Angels was getting huge.
It basically television as we knew it from two whenever
the real world came along. Just escape as television is
what they called it was was starting and it was
the hip new thing. So basically, if they had turned
Han Solo and Princess Leiah and Luke Skywalker into maybe
(16:33):
you know, sexy detectives, it might have gone over even better.
But they went the other way. They decided to latch
onto this extraordinarily stale um genre of television and they
hired the best in the business, like there was there was.
There was a quote from I think Lenny RiPPs who
was saying, like we had literally a dream team, a
(16:53):
variety show dream team, and everybody was good, but there
were probably no bad worlders the Titanic he there, That's
a great quote. Yeah. The guy they hired too directed
initially was a dude named David A. Coomba, and he
had made his name for Welcome to the Fillmore East.
It was a concert documentary with Van Mortrison, Van Morrison
(17:14):
and the Birds in nine one, and he actually was
at usc Film School the same time as Lucas, even
though they didn't know each other, and um he only
ended up directing about three segments of the thing before
he quit yet before he walked off. Some say he
was actually let go, but we'll get to him in
a minute, and who replaced him. As as we get
(17:34):
along down this uh gross road, well let's let's take
a little break because I'm I'm overly excited, Okay, George, Alright,
(18:02):
So we've established most of the main players. We'll we'll
get to a few more. We should point out that, um,
Mark hamill And and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew,
they had no grounds to refuse to be on this. Basically, yeah,
pretty much. They were not huge, huge stars, yet they
could throw their weight around and say this is terrible
(18:23):
and I'm not doing it. They were. They were big
overnight because of Star Wars, for sure, but they weren't
to the adoring public. Back at the studio. They could
still be bossed around and this was the result of it.
And you can tell also, um, just from watching the
actual special, like Harrison Ford is not happy to be
there at any point. Um. Princess Leiah is clearly on drugs.
(18:49):
Uh was she on drugs at this point? She? If
you watch it, she's she's on drugs, Especially the ending scene.
Mark cambell It looks like he's happy to be there.
Act he was fine, but apparently he said no, I'm
I'm not doing a musical number. And if you watch
his part, wedging a musical number in there would have
been even more painful. Um. But they everybody who was
(19:13):
part of the actual Star Wars franchise that wasn't wearing
like a full body costume was like, I really wish
I wasn't here, And you can tell, oh yeah. In fact,
in the opening uh credit sequence, they're showing the picture
that you know, the faces of the people, and you
see Harrison Ford as if he's flying the Millennium Falcon,
and you can you can just hear the guy off
(19:34):
screen going now look at the camera and just give
a nod. Just look at the camera and give a nod.
And he finally you can tell he's piste off and
he looks up at the camera and just sort of
smirks yeah and points at the camera like okay, I'm
looking at the camera, and then goes back to what
he's doing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I felt bad for
him so early on Valanche and others did you did
you feel bad for him? Though? Really I mean, like,
(19:57):
come on, it's Harrison Ford's hans soul. He has to
go do this for like five days. Yeah, I felt
terrible for him. I think it's hilarious that they had
to do this, especially now. Well, early on, Valanche and
others knew that they may be in trouble because they
decided not to subtitle any of the Wookie dialogue and
they literally started after a brief opening scene setting it
(20:19):
up here. Here's the basic plot is, Han Solo is
trying to get Chewbacca back to Kazook in time for
Life Day so we can celebrate with his family. That's
the basis of the entire two Yes, the basis the
entire two hours. They encounter a space battle and they're delayed,
and the next two hours are kind of what's going
(20:39):
on while the delay is happening back on Kazoo, back
on Kazook. Because you hear, like, okay, well, Han Solo
and Chewbacca evading the Imperial Guard and all that stuff
for two hours. I would watch that. I would too. Ye,
that's not what they show. Killing time at the Wookie household,
that is what they show. Yeah, that's what they do.
(21:00):
It's people hanging out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him,
and then killing time while they wait for him to
come back. Literally, so um and so hold on. So
you say there's a setup, right, Yeah, that's the initial
set up, and then chuck, that's followed by this. Yeah,
it's followed by literally ten minutes, ten solid minutes of
(21:23):
incomprehensible Wookie speak. So let's let's join it for a second,
shall we. Yeah, let's all enjoy it. And again, you
(22:14):
said ten minutes, and you're not exaggerating, you're not being hyperbolic.
You can time it. That's it's ten minutes of wookie's
talking to each other with no subtitles. Fortunately, I couldn't
follow it at first, like I didn't even know who
it was. I thought it was might have been Chewbacca's
mom and dad. Oh yeah, that's a little brother. And
(22:36):
I don't find out until later when Mark Cambell shows
up via skype call and says, he really explains everything
that had just happened, Like, you're Chewbacca's father, itchy, you'r
Chewbacca's son, uh, lumpy lumpy, and you're Chewbacca's wife. Yeah,
thank you. So before everybody starts like freaking out. We
(22:58):
know that that's actually their nick names. Their real names are.
His father is a Ti chick cook, a Ti chick cook,
it's really hard to pronounce. Mulatto Buck is his wife,
and his son is Lumpo war Rump but as named
by Lucas. But yeah, but Lucas also named him Lumpy
Itchy and Mala so Um. They're all back there wringing
(23:23):
their hands, trying to figure out ways to pass the
time until they get word from Chewbacca that he's made
it to uh what is it, ketchuck z kazuok um
just ketchup ketchup or cats up if you're fancy um.
But Chewbacca is having trouble getting back to Katchuk because
(23:44):
there's Kazuki, because there's a blockade by the Empire and
they're looking for rebels, specifically Chewbacca, who I didn't realize this.
He's the most famous Wookie of all. Did you know that? Yeah,
of course I didn't know that. Well, I mean he's
the only one that really appears in the movie bes
I mean we're seeing, like, you know, these people's view
(24:04):
of the universe. What about back on Zook, Yeah, he
might have just been a fly by night wookie, right, yeah,
but not the case very famous wookie. Yeah, and he
really loved it, like soak in his fame. Alright, So
he realizes there's a problem. Valanche. He goes to Lucas
and it's like, I don't know, man, this is your world,
but it may not be the strongest thing to do
(24:28):
to set this in wookie Land and have all this
incomprehensible dialogue. And he says he was met with a
glacial stare. Uh. Well, he put it a little differently
than that. Well, he said glacial stair. He did. The
glacial stair that he got was for this quote. He said,
these people just talking what sounds like fat people having
an orgasm. He goes, if you want, you can set
(24:50):
up a tape recorder in my bedroom and I'll do
all of the follying for it. Yeah. He's a large guy,
he is, so uh that's what got the glacial stare.
But Valanche later said that from this, there was one
development meeting that Lucas attended and it was here's the
Wookie Bible, tell me what you got. And Valanche said
he and the other writers and producers and director were
(25:12):
just kind of throwing ideas and George Lucas would either
say like, no, that doesn't work, give him a glacial stare,
or say, yes, that's exactly it. Yes, let's make this
a variety show. Yeah, And there was a little bit
of um background there. The cantina players in the band
had appeared on other variety shows at that point, and
(25:33):
I think it went over a fairly well, just as
a short segment on like the Richard Pryor Variety Show
or Donnie Marie um Man. There were a lot of
variety shows. But that's what I'm saying. It was that
was television. That's what you did, like the Birds um
the The show had its course and then it became
a variety show. It was just everybody love variety shows.
(25:58):
By this time, though, everybody was sick of I D
shows and so it really was a terrible choice. In fact,
they even hired a couple of writers from Shields and Yarnell,
which I hadn't heard of it. Oh yeah, I watched it.
It was creepy, this mind couple who had their own
variety show, and they figured these two will be great
(26:19):
because they are used to working without words, right, so
and so there is a certain logic to the variety show.
It's not that's just that variety shows were popular at
the time. Somebody was like, well, Wookie's you don't understand
what they're saying. So this is all going to be
very physical. So these people who who did what is
it Shields and Yard, Now, yeah, that that's a perfect choice.
(26:41):
That that makes complete sense. You can see this whole
this whole process of leading up to the point where
it was produced and shot and everything a series of like, oh,
we have this problem, Well here's a fix, but that
leads to another problem. Well we'll fix it with this,
and and no one stepping back and being like, all
we've done is create a series of problems that are
(27:01):
going to come together and make one extraordinarily large problem
that will become legendary. No one did that, and so
the whole thing was was made. That's right. And it
eventually airs on November seventeen, night Friday at eight pm
Eastern time. That's right, and Nielsen ratings it um attracted
(27:23):
thirteen million viewers just the second hour, just in the US.
It aired in six or seven countries total. Yeah, but
no one cares about that. I guess not, because none
of those are on the internet, you know. Uh, it
finished second to the Love Boat in the second I'm
sorry from eight to nine, and in the next hour
actually finished behind part two of a mini series about
(27:43):
Pearl Harbor starring Angie Dickinson. So it didn't even win
their respective hours. No, thirteen million, that's that's not bad.
The thing is, apparently if you look at the Nielsen
ratings graph for the first hour, yeah we know about
that graph. It's okay, yeah, we do. Then after a
very important part, which we'll talk about soon. Um, it
(28:04):
just drops off at the end of the first hour,
and that actually probably made the executives at CBS cringe
for a number of reasons. Number one is this special
was originally supposed to just be an hour, but so
many advertisers wanted to sign on that they extended it
to two hours. And it shines through you can totally
(28:26):
tell that this thing was never supposed to I think
an hour might have been stretching it. To tell you
the truth, it's thirty minutes of content forty if you're generous,
an hour, and then two hours. It becomes one of
the worst things that was ever put on television. All right, well,
let's take a break and then we'll talk a little
bit more about the actual um uh even I don't
(28:48):
want to call it content, but it is content in
the strictest definitions. Right after this, alright, so the show itself,
(29:17):
we've given you the main plot line, which again is
that Chewy is trying to get back to his home
planet to celebrate life Day with this family. Right, that's it,
and again we almost barely see Chewy. Yeah, the rest
is his family on because look waiting for him to
come back for a life day. Yeah. So, um, some
(29:37):
of the various things they did, they were guest stars.
There was Harvey Corman from The Carol Burnett Show, one
of my all time favorites him or Carol Carol Burnett
Show both. He's great. Yeah, he actually if you watch
what he's doing, you're like, this is comedy genius. For apparently,
he too was like the only one on set that
was bringing levity. He was joking around and kind of
(29:58):
kept spirits up good for that's what I say. And
he had three three different parts. Yeah, he played uh uh,
well I don't even know the names. Actually, we could
look him up, but he played a. He played a
Julia child like cook. There's an actual cooking segment, a
long one, a very long cooking segment where Chewbacca's wife
(30:21):
Um makes Banta stew to kill some time, to kill
some time because there was on her planet and in
our living room. Yeah, so Harvey Corman is in Drag
is a fore armed Julia childlike uh TV chef and
I think it's Gormanda. Is her name Gormanda? That makes
total sense. He also plays Um. There's this one weird
(30:44):
bit where Chewbacca's son tries to figure out a way
to trick the stormtroopers that the Empire had come and
kind of because of the blockade, raided the house and
other properties. So he tries to trick them by I think,
rigging a calm link to speak in a differ voice.
So he has to watch the instruction manual. He watches
(31:06):
an instruction video which was Harvey Kitel as a robot. Oh,
it would have been wonderful lit big Harvey Kitel, Harvey
Carvey Corman, man Haye murders someone in the middle of
the instruction Harvey Corman. And then the final role he
had was as a a bar patron in the cantina
(31:27):
that drinks. He has a hole in the top of
his head like a volcano where he pours his drinks
and that's how he drinks. And he he loves be Arthur.
Did we mention be Arthur was in it? B Arthur
is not only in it, Chuck. She sings a song.
She does. She is thenowns to everyone she manages or
maybe owns the owner. Yeah, the what's the mas what
(31:48):
moss deaf cantina? Uh? No, most deaf is a rapper?
Oh yeah, I think you mean Moss Eisley. Yes, yes,
that cantina. She's the owner. B Arthur is the owner,
the author of the Golden Girls, but in this case
the Arthur of Maud, because, as one of the people
who wrote one of the articles we based this on
points out, she's just basically playing Maud as the owner
(32:09):
of the cantina. Yeah, and her song comes because um,
they basically say, there's a lockdown, so you gotta call
last call um at your bar. So she calls last
call by singing a song to everyone. Right, and again,
we can't possibly have the script lead anywhere else but
Chewbacca's house while his family waits for it so all
(32:30):
this takes place as part of a public service announcement
basically broadcast by the Empire about how immoral life on
tattooing is. So let's go see what's going on in
the mas Eisley Cantina as it's being shut down for curfew. Alright,
this is incomprehensible, but it goes on. Um, so they're
(32:53):
in it. There's also Art Carney, Yes, the Honeymoon as family,
the star of the whole thing. Really, he has the
most lines, I would say, the most comprehensible line. Right.
So he plays a trader, a human trader um that is, uh,
recently been with Han Solo and Chewy and actually gets
to kazuok and says they're on the way. It's all good. Yeah,
(33:16):
a trader not trade toor Yeah, traders in trades humans
for you know money. No, he he sells goods, Yeah,
a trader. He doesn't trade humans. Yeah he's in the
human trade. He No, he isn't. Really he trades humans
like he sells humans. Looked it up in the Star
(33:38):
Wars Encyclopedia said that he was in the human trade. Huh.
So in this Christmas special, apparently they sanitized his his
background because he's basically just selling like gadgets and novelties
and stuff like that to the Wookies and the Empire
who were occupying the area. Yes, he comes bearing gifts
because he's a friend of Chewbacca's family. Yeah, so he
(34:00):
comes bearing gifts. One of the gifts he gives is
a UM sort of like a little digital insert to
a Oh, I guess you would call it a virtual
reality hair dryer, hair dryer, like a beauty shop hair dryer.
He gives it to Grandpa Itchy. Grandpa Itchy UM sits
(34:21):
under this hair dryer, pops in this uh digital cassette,
and it can only be described as softcore porn. Apparently,
the writers who were interviewed for this said that was
totally the intent. They were trying to get what amounted
to softcore porn that would pass the sensors. So it's
all m. You can't even say it's innuendo. It's too
(34:44):
obvious in overt for innuendo. Instead, it's just it's just
it's just gross. It's really gross. Um. Diane Carroll, Yes
she is UM. A Vegas staple shows up and starts
basically tantalizing UM. Grandpa Itchy, who again, this is Chewbacca's
(35:05):
elderly father who now engages in some sort of well
he's he's watching virtual reality pornography now, and this is
a pretty lengthy segment in and of itself. Well yeah,
and she literally says to him like, now I can
see her really excited. Yeah, it's pretty rough to watch. Yeah,
So then you've got another musical number because also again
(35:26):
he shutters, yeah, it's really strange, all right, So there's
also ah, I know, it seems like we're jumping around,
but it's it's so mind blowing, not like this is
pretty much like blow for blow. Um. Actually I forgot
earlier on in in the in the special Um, there's
one of my favorite sequences is when Grandpa Itchy goes
(35:48):
over to Lumpy and basically sets up remember the the
hologram chessboard that they played in A New Hope, Yeah,
basically kind of sets that up and says, here, just
play this. He pushes the button when is clearly at
nineteen seventies cassette recorder and another uh like it's like
a Cirque de sol acid trip um gymnast routine happens
(36:14):
in front of the kid's eyes. And again this all
just it's not like it shows a snippet. They showed
the entire segments, like five six ten minutes long of
all of these things. So you would think, Okay, they've
gone to this hologram well a couple of times, why
not go to it again? Well they do. They do
to kill more time. While the Imperial Guard is ransacking
(36:36):
their house. Um, Art Carney apparently, I guess it's trying
to get one of the Imperial Guard, the leader I think,
or one of the leaders who looks like somebody from
Spaceballs by the way, very much so. Um. And the
writer of the Vanity Fair article, by the way said, um,
this this is so incomprehensible. The specialist George Lucas didn't
even have the schwartz with them method time. So anyway,
(37:00):
our Carney's distracting this uh Imperial leader. Um, while they're
ransacking the Wookiees house Chewbacca's house with a hologram, and
this hologram instead of being an acrobat or Diane Carroll
or any kind of porn or anything like that, is
Jefferson Starship. And they decide that they're going to play
(37:22):
Light the Sky on Fire, which apparently is about UFOs.
It's a little music video. Basically it's a pretty Yeah,
it's the predecessor to like video kill the radio Starr
you can tell um. And again it is the whole
lengthy song, the whole thing. So every time that somebody's like,
we need to escape mentally from what's going on here
(37:44):
in our house, let's go into the video world, it's
not just and they don't cut back and forth. It's okay,
here's five minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song. And
even the Jefferson Starship guys um were like, yeah, it's
sort of a weird trip, like we didn't get it,
but we did it right. They gave us some money
(38:05):
and some cocaine. Well probably, so we said, yeah, chuck.
I think though, um, there yet another segment like this
is actually widely regarded as the high point of the
whole thing. So there is a cartoon actually yeah that
Lump Lumpy watches Yeah Lump, He's like, the Imperial Guard
(38:25):
is still ransacking my house. I think I'll entertain myself
by watching a cartoon on my little um. I don't
know what. I guess it was an iPad and uh,
he watches this cartoon and it's it's actually remarkable for
a number of reasons. It's the best part of the
whole special generally agreed upon as such, not just us.
(38:46):
And it introduces Boba Fett. It's the first time Boba
Fett ever makes an appearance in the Star Wars universe. Yeah,
it's actually not a bad And you can't find it
in the the one version I told you to watch.
They removed it for copyright, but they didn't watch a
separate version. You can find it on its own. Yeah,
and it's, Um, it's very much reminiscent of like the
cartoon style of the day, like a he Man or
something even even but it's even a little more artsy
(39:10):
than that. Yeah. But it does have a plot that
you can follow that makes sense as a Star Wars thing,
and it introduces Boba Fette, like you said, And um,
it's actually not bad. It's like Luke and R two
and C three p O. Yeah, and there's like they
crash on a planet or something. Yeah, and Han and
Jewry you're in it. And it's the first time we
see in Darth Vader. It's the first time we see
(39:30):
Boba Fette. And that he is uh that he is
just doing whatever he can do for money. Like Luke
trusts him at first, c three pos like you sure
you should trust him this quick and he's like, oh,
three p o you and your non trusting ways, and
then it turns out he's selling them out to the
dark side. So it's it's basically Boba Fett is an
allegory for George Lucas himself. Um, so the cartoon comes
(39:55):
and goes, and that was the thing that came at
about the end of the first hour mark, and after
at everybody just turned off their television sets. Yeah, I
don't remember. Did you watch this when it came up? Yeah?
I remember watching it, but I don't remember much about it,
like if I made it through it all. I mean
it was I was seven and it was on until ten,
so I probably didn't make it through it all. Um,
(40:17):
you're probably disturbed. Who knows, I just remember that. I'll
have to ask my brother. He might have a memory
of this. Oh, Betty does I'm sure he met everybody
afterwards or something like that. You know it has a picture.
Well he was ten at that point, so cynicism had,
you know, become a thing in his life probably by then,
didn't that when cynicism kicks in he Scott, holding out
(40:37):
the fourteen fifteen Yeah maybe so so um chuck, the
whole thing finally does in. And actually there's a guy
his name is Nathan Raban, he writes over at the
A V Club. He had a great quote. He basically
said that one of the great redeeming values of this
um this special is that it does eventually end. Yeah,
you know what the first part of the quote is,
(40:57):
I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written in directed
by a sentient bag of cocaine. And like, go read
his his review of the Star Wars Holiday Special, because
he goes on to describe exactly what that must have been,
like the development meeting where the bag of cocaine is
pacing back and forth talking about what should happen. That's
what it feels like. But it doesn't, and it ends
(41:20):
even more. It takes this bizarre two hours and wraps
it up in just a nice bizarre bow. Yeah, so
what happens is eventually Han Solo should we say spoiler alert,
Eventually Han Solo and Chewy make it to the planet.
They park on the far side of the planet because
they know the uh the Imperial forces are there and
the exercise will do Chewy good, so they have to
(41:43):
hike over there. They eventually make it back home. Uh,
they find a storm the stormtroopers at their house. Um,
their tree hut. Yeah, which, by the paintings that set
this up, I don't think we mentioned I don't even
call him Matt paintings. It looks like someone painted something
on the wall and they just like put a camera
in front of it pretty much. Yeah. So they get
(42:04):
back and um, Chewbacca, Han Solo hides around the corner
of Chewbacca steps in front of his son to protect him.
Han Solo jumps out, and the stormtrooper trips over a
pile of logs and falls over the balcony and dies
in a holiday special. So they wouldn't even not only
could he not shoot first with Grido, but they couldn't
(42:28):
even have him like wrestle the storm trooper and throw
him off. He trips over a log and Han Solo
has his hands thrown up like wasn't me. It might
also been a banana peel, you know, but again, Uh.
This is basically produced by Vaudevillians starring Vaudevillians. Why not
have the one death take place from basically what it
(42:49):
mounts to somebody slipping on a banana peel exactly. It's
a perfect way to end it. So that's uh. That
guy basically represents the end of the imperial threat for
the rest of life. And um, we we then see
Life Day being celebrated, which is celebrated by lots of
wookies assembling in what looks like a giant Olden Mills portrait. Um,
(43:13):
and all of them are wearing red robes. And I
know I'm up talking, and it's because my mind is
still having trouble like wrapping around this. And then um,
Princess Leia comes out with C three P O is
Mark Hamill There, the whole gang zerif okay, the whole
gangs there. And then they all gather around to hear
(43:35):
a great quote from Princess Leiah, which we will read
um verbatim. This holiday is yours, but we all share
with you the hope that this day brings us closer
to freedom, into harmony, and to peace. No matter how
different we appear, we're all the same in our struggle
against the powers of evil and darkness. I hope that
(43:55):
this day will always be a day of joy in
which we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage, and
more than anything else, our love for one another. This
is the promise of the Tree of Life que song, right,
And we should also point out the tree of Life
has never been mentioned up to this point. Takes a
sudden appearance at the end. And when you said que song,
(44:16):
by que Song, you mean Princess Leiah starts singing. Yeah.
And apparently that was one of the big contingencies on
Carrie Fischer being involved. She's going through the phase where
she was like, I kind of like singing. Bruce Valanche
calls it her Joni Mitchell period. Yeah, and she somehow
convinced them to let her sing as Princess Leiah. And
she does. And again I've said that she looks like
(44:39):
she's on drugs. This is the point where she really
does look like she's on drugs. And it's not just
me Um other writers who have written reviews of this.
It's really obvious that she possibly smoked a decent amount
of pot before she shot this shot this scene. But
she sings, Oh, okay, it's fine, it's just the fact it, Um,
(45:01):
Princess Leigh is singing. And actually Bruce Valanche had a
really great quote too. He says that, um, she very
much wanted to show this side of her talent, and
there was general dismay because this was not what we
wanted Princess Leia to be doing. She did it anyway.
So the whole thing ends with her singing this song
about life day, which is set loosely to the John
(45:23):
Williams Star Wars theme. Uh So along the way, the director,
original director quit, A new director, Steve Binder was hired
to finish the job and bring it in. Uh, and
he did over the original one million dollar budget, of course.
Always Uh, he did bring it in and um at
this point George Lucas had uh. He was he was
(45:46):
working on Empire Strikes Back. He didn't know what was
going on. He wasn't around for the shoot. No, it
wasn't until it aired. I think that he actually saw it. Yes,
and it was a travesty obviously, if you haven't noticed
that by now. Critics hated it hours, fans really hated it.
Everybody hate The people who were in it hated it.
Lucas hated it. You've been. Harvey Corman secretly hated it.
(46:07):
Even Harvey Kitel hated Actually he loved it. But Lucas
has been asked over the years about it a lot,
and he doesn't talk about it much. But in two
thousand five, and I don't buy this for a second,
he says, Um, it was an interview, he said special
from I really didn't have much to do with us.
You know that part is true. I can't remember what
(46:29):
network it was even on, but it was a thing
that they did. That's a lie. There's no way he
doesn't know. That was CBS. Uh. We kind of just
let them do it. I believe that it was done
by I can't even remember who the group was, but
they were variety TV guys. I'm sure he remembers a
few of them. We let them use the characters and stuff,
and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but
(46:49):
you learned from those experiences. I think they even used
some of the footage from the movie. At the end,
it looks like some space like a highlight reel. Yeah
the gang well, and during the um it looked like
some of the they had some insert shots of like
imperial cruisers and Thai fighters and stuff that. Remember when
(47:11):
when Chewbacca like leans back and puts his hands behind it,
that's in there. It's it's like a it's just a
highlight reel from the movie saying like I feel like this,
go see the movie. Well, and also that means it
doesn't match the look of the rest of it at all. Yeah,
that's true. It's just sort of inserted. They tried. They
definitely tried. Um, And George Lucas is totally full of
it because in seven he told star Log magazine that
(47:34):
the Christmas Special would be out on video cassette very soon,
and in two thousand seven, two years after that quote,
you just read where he's like, I don't even know
what you're talking about. Basically, um. He apparently considered releasing
the Christmas Special as a bonus on the the DVDs
of the first three right, but did not didn't And
(47:55):
apparently Carrie Fisher told Lucas that if you want me
to do um DVD extra commentary commentary, then I want
a clean, original copy of the Holiday Special, So why
go ahead so I can play at parties when I
want people to leave. It's pretty great, it is so
uh and there is one of those clean copies is
(48:17):
floating around out there, so you can watch this in
it in its entirety. Some of it, like the cartoon,
was removed due to copyright infringement and that kind of stuff,
but as as the case with the rest of the Internet,
you can just go find it elsewhere and piece it together.
There's also the original ads that aired in Baltimore that
are just fascinating. Those are always fun gm ads where
(48:41):
one of the guys who's in quality control is he says,
did you watch it? I don't think I saw that.
He goes, um, we really care about these cars and
that's no job man on a GM and he's like,
it's serious. They're trying to be hip. Yeah. Um, it's
a pretty good stuff. Here's my final thought on it.
I love it. It does not taint my Star Wars
(49:03):
experience or my love for the franchise, and I'm glad
it is out there because it it's a it's a
fun little stain that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I
think it adds to it actually, because it's campy and awful,
and I don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it.
(49:23):
I'm with you. You like it? Oh yeah, I mean
I watched it twice. I wouldn't watch it a second
I wouldn't have made it through the first time. I
let me take that back, as I'm a pro, so
I would have made it through the first time. I
wouldn't have watched it a second time if I wasn't.
There wasn't something about it, and I figured out I
think the thing that I like the most about it
is Lumpy, Chewbacca's son, played by an actress named Patty Maloney,
(49:46):
who frankly is hands down the best actor in the
entire thing. She like her responses and everything. It's just awesome.
I think my favorite parts are, uh, well, there's a
great Wilhelm scream trips over the law. Jerry would not
have noticed it. Uh And then there's a part where
(50:06):
all the wiki dialogue you can't understand, but there's clearly
one part where we're Itchy and Lumpy are having exchange
where Lumpy, you can make it out, goes yeah, yeah, yeah,
I noticed that, but it's covered up. But someone was like,
we have to have at least one exchange where you
sort of know what they're saying or they were like,
I think she just said I love you. Should we
(50:27):
have them redo it? And then directors like no, I
want to go and Chuck. There's one other thing that
I figured out from watching this. It's not readily apparent
the whole thing is made all the more odd, and
that there's situation after situation after situation where we, as
normal audiences, were trained to expect the laugh track, but
there's not a laugh track. Had there been a laugh track,
(50:51):
it what it might have been less bizarre, But the
fact that it's missing just makes your agitates the mind.
So it's this whole additional element that it is weird.
I never thought about that. There's just weird moments of
silence all throughout it. Yeah, like when Art Carney's doing
this thing, Yeah, telling jokes. Yeah, Okay, I agree with you, Chuck,
don't take things too seriously. I think that's the great
(51:13):
lesson in this. Yeah, and then's the lesson of life
day it is and in two thousand seven Rift Tracks
Great Mystery Science Theater three thousand Guys Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett,
and Kevin Murphy uh provided audio commentary for the full
version of the special. So try and go grab that
if you can as well, so you can. It's on
the site because it's great. I think it's like eight
(51:34):
bucks and those guys are awesome, and at least I
think Corbett listens to us. So, hey, Corbett, you got
anything else? No, No, I think we did this. There's
some good stuff. Go read the Vanity Fair article. Uh
Han Solo Comedy Hour. There's a book called How Star
Wars Conquered the Universe that has a very interesting chapter
(51:56):
about this. That's where we found it asserted that George
Lucas never said that he matched this thing with a
sledge hammer. Um. And there's also an entire website dedicated
to its Star Wars Holiday Special dot com. Yeah, and
if you want to know more about the Star Wars
Holiday special, we have a ton of heart Star Wars
stuff on how Stuff Works by the way, Yeah, we
have cool, um sort of fun articles about the Death
(52:18):
Star and Lightsabers videos with the Holly Fry from stuff
you missed in history class? Yeah, who she knows her stuff?
She does. Um. So you can just type star Wars
in the search bar how stuff Works dot com and
it will bring up some cool stuff for you. Since
I said search bar, its time for listener mail. Hey guys,
just finished listening to the Voytage Manuscript podcast. Found it's
(52:39):
super interesting, especially the theories on its definition or origin.
No Josh mentioned Chuck sory, but being drug induced somewhat
surprising or even unlikely given the language in the manuscript
follows linguistic laws only founded in the past one years.
But if you think about it, it's a tough. It's
tough to stray away from familiar structures, especially for some
(53:00):
thing like language. I think back to when I was
younger and friends invented their own languages, or even in
writing a song or poetry. Creativity can sometimes be limited
by what we know. Uh, So I just thought I
contribute that the conversation nice. Thanks big, thanks for all
you guys do. I found the podcast after moving to
San Diego in the last few years for some noise
around my apartment, so basically we were blocking out noise
(53:24):
we do that, which I love, uh and then as
a way to get through traffic on my commute home
from work. You guys are far more interesting and enjoyable
than television and YouTube videos. Sure, I've listened to hundreds
and will continue to listen to hundreds more Keep on
Keeping on. That is from Amy J. Moffatt. Thanks a lot,
Amy in San Diego. Does that mean like place of
the whales in German or something like that. Uh yeah.
(53:48):
If you want to get in touch of this, you
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Know dot Com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
(54:08):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H
It's that time, everybody. It's time to kick off the
holiday season with the annual playing of our episode on
the patently terrible Star Wars Holiday Special. I hope the
select finds you merry and bright, cozy and happy, filled
with the holiday spirit, and I hope you guys are
all having a wonderful Christmas time. Welcome to Stuff you
(00:27):
should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
Chuckers Bryant and Jerry Jerome Roland. Uh. Who's the Wookie mother? Yeah? Mala,
(00:50):
that was the Wookie wife. Oh and mother? Yeah? Sure,
Chewbacca's bomb is not with them any longer. She left.
She was not about to appear in that she went
up the window. I'm excited about this. I have to
say we should say Happy Star Wars Day. Yeah. Today
is um December. Um, I have my opening night tickets?
(01:13):
Do you really sure? Wow? You know? I do you
into it? Oh? Yeah, well I will definitely go see
it in the theater, But um, why won't be the
opening night? Sure? I've gotten really adept at like ignoring spoilers,
people talking about stuff all like, so I can I
could conceivably see this movie a month after it comes
(01:35):
out and still going fresh. It's I'm an ostrich. Yeah
you black yourself out. Yeah you go dark? Do I
make myself go to sleep face? You go to the
dark side. I've been there a while now. Uh. Well,
Happy Star Wars Day though, I'm sure that I think
this pairs nicely with Christmas Star Wars Day. It's all
(01:57):
come together. Yes, Um, we already missed Life Day though,
so happy belated Life Day. Are they celebrating it this year? November? Yeah,
but it's every three years. Mm hmm, our cane man job. Okay,
so it's every three years, started in nineteen seventy eight.
Let's do the math, shall we? Mm hmmm? Quick math break.
(02:21):
I believe that two thousand fourteen was the last Life Day. Man,
we just missed, and then again in twenty seventeen. Okay,
so seen, we'll celebrate Life Day. Will put on our
red robes, are ultralong, straight ironed wigs, and we'll celebrate
Life Day the way it was meant to. Yes, and
if you have no idea what we're talking about, we
(02:42):
are talking about Life Day, which is a celebration. Uh
that Wookies in the Star Wars universe have every three years. Yeah,
it's like their Christmas or the Kanza their tech. Supposedly,
it's sort of like Earth Day two. They celebrate the
diversity of their ecosystem, uh, and also remembrance of the dead,
(03:02):
and they also give gifts. They're like the Finns basically. Yeah,
it's a it's a very interesting part of the Star
Wars canon. It is, and it's almost entirely made up,
dashed off you could possibly say, by um, George Lucas
in the seventies. Um, And it's the basis of what
is become derided as like one of the worst things
(03:25):
that ever happened to the Star Wars galaxy. Well, not
only that, one of the worst things ever aired on television. Yeah,
with this galaxy. Yeah, at first that sounds like hyperbole, like,
come on, it's because it was Star Wars, we had
high expectations. But it's really that bad. Yeah. The people
who say that haven't seen even a second of it. Yeah. Yeah, However,
(03:45):
I watched it, uh when I was a kid. Then
again this week, and you watched it twice this week. Yeah,
I watched it last night and this morning. There's something
about it. It's mesmerizing. It really is. It's one of
those things that you start watching it and you want
to turn it off, but you want to see just
how absurd it can get. Almost Yeah, and it starts absurd,
(04:08):
it stays absurd. In the middle, it's increasingly more absurd,
it gets a little less absurd, finishes super absurd. Yeah,
it's just a train wreck in every single sense of
the word to bottom. It's extraordinarily difficult to overstate how
bad this is. And some people, you know, in researching this,
you read about it, you read descriptions of these things,
(04:29):
and it just can't possibly be gotten across until you
see it. So luckily, as we will see, you can
go onto YouTube and watch it, and you may even
enjoy this episode more if you pause, go spend two
hours watching this thing, and then come back and laugh
along with us. Yeah, there's a great Over the years,
there have been many segments of it on YouTube from
(04:51):
badly dub VHS tapes, but there's one really pretty good
version of it in full um brought to you by
w h I O Dayton, Ohio, Channel seven. Because that
flashes up on the screen periodically. Man, it is high quality.
It looks good. It has to basically be the copy
(05:12):
that the actual UM affiliate broadcast. Yeah, it's like that,
that quality compared to the other stuff floating around on YouTube,
clearly recorded on a pc R, which we're really expensive,
very expensive. I did some calculating on west Egg UM,
so the average VCR went for about a thousand dollars.
There were brand new it's amazing thousand dollars in ninety
(05:33):
eight money, so they're about thirty eight hundred dollars in
two thousand fourteen money. Luckily, there were some rich people
out there recording this stuff, and the wealthy have saved
us all again yet again, as they always do. Uh.
We need to shout out some articles that we use
for this. There's great a great article in Vanity Fair
called the Han Solo Comedy Our exclamation Point by Frank D. Jacomo.
(05:59):
And then there's the Star Wars Holiday Special was the
worst thing on television ever by So when we kind
of know Alex Pasternak uh from Motherboard, Yeah, which is
uh not wired, it's uh vice. We wrote a little
bit for Motherboard back then and we had a call
with that, like we're like old Motherboard vets basically and
(06:19):
the one there one more, there was another one and
I don't know who wrote this one chuck. Uh, yeah,
it's the titles the Star Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas
wants to smash every copy of with a sledgehammer, which
was a famous quote, uh supposedly at a convention by Lucas. Yes,
which is not correct. He didn't ever say that. No, okay,
(06:39):
that that sounded like something that people made up. Yes,
but if you go on the internet you will quickly
believe that he did. Apparently didn't, so let's I'm sure
he felt that way though, clearly, because he did appear
on Robot Chicken and I think two thousand five on
the Therapist Couch talking about how much he hated the special. Alright,
so let's set the background, shall we Shall we go
back to nineteen seventy summer, getting the old way back machine.
(07:03):
All right, let's do it. All right, here we are,
there's Waterson. Yeah, I'm just a little six year old
excited about Star Wars. I am. I've just turned one. Yes,
you don't know what's up yet. I please forgive me
if I urinate myself, no problem. Ok Uh, So what
(07:26):
has happened is Star Wars has become a huge, huge hit,
seemingly out of nowhere, establishing George Lucas is one of
the brilliant young minds and filmmaking. Even though it was
in his first movie, it was his first huge, huge
breakout hit. Oh yeah, for sure, talk don't mean to
talk about a breakout hit like no one had ever
seen anything like it before two thousand one had come
(07:47):
out in the late sixties. But it wasn't it's still
it still isn't accessible to all audiences, you know. Yeah,
it's kind of cerebral film. Yeah, it's not an adventure movie.
This was this is like basically swa s buckling on
the screen, but you know, in a galaxy far far away.
Star Wars just changed everything and it came on just
like a hammer um and a new hope. By the way, yes,
(08:11):
and then then we're gonna get stuff wrong, nerds, So yes,
just go ahead and get your little fingers ready to
email us. Like if it wasn't driven home that I'm
not a nerd by the fact that I don't have
opening night tickets or any tickets yet, give me a break,
and by proxy chuck to okay, thank you. So, um,
it's it's hard to stay how great Star Wars was
(08:32):
in everyone's mind, right. Bill Murray came out with that
lounge singer Star Wars thing. It was everywhere and if
you if you just listen to the lyrics of it,
he's really it's just Bill Murray singing about how much
Star Wars is awesome. Right. So, by the following year, Um,
George Lucas was he wanted to figure out a way
(08:53):
to keep audiences just engaged with the whole Star Wars
franchise that he was just starting to build. But he
knew the Empire Strikes Back was a couple more years out,
so um he I think he was approached by some
TV executives who said, have you considered doing some sort
of TV special? They're all the rage right now. We
(09:13):
have a we have a graphic that's really awesome that
we set aside just for TV specials here at CBS.
Why don't you let us let's get together and do
a Star Wars special. That's right. Producers Gary Smith and
Dwight him On, Uh, we're working over at CBS, and
they said, this is a great way to keep the
spirit alive. While you're making your other movie, maybe move
(09:36):
some more toys. Yeah, which George Lucas got to. So
it was right before Thanksgiving, and he said, there'll be
a lot of people watching TV um pre holiday season,
or I guess in the holiday season. Well, the weekend
before Thanksgiving, it's like everybody's shopping, sitting around family like
waiting to actually do stuff. That's perfect time to broadcast
(09:56):
something on TV. So Lucas says, all right, let's do
the US. I don't have a ton of time, but
how about this. I'll get I'll get a story together,
and then you can go hire a whiz bang team
of of veteran writers and producers and directors whatever genre
you think is appropriate. And those are the words that
will haunt George Lucas to his grave. Yeah, so Lucas said,
(10:19):
here's my idea. I wanted to be based um on Wookiees,
and I wanted to take place on their home planet
of Kizuok or wikie planet. See is that how you
say kazuk. That's how it's pronounced in the episode the
Holiday Special, but it's also pronounced different ways. Other times.
I would have pronounced that cassey e got spell it
(10:43):
k a s h y y y k, which I mean,
I guess that sounds like Chewbuck is planet sure also
called G five, Wilkie planet see or Eaton is a
mid rim planet. Right. So the whole reason, apparently that
George Lucas was interested in featuring the Keys was it
is what we in show business call low hanging fruit.
(11:05):
The reason why it was low hanging fruit was because
they had just established the different scenes that would make
the cut for Empire Strikes Back and uh, what how
did you pronounce it? Again? Kazook. Kazook had not made
the cut. Uh. Even prior to this, apparently for a
new hope, George Lucas had whipped up a forty page
what's known as the Wookie Bible. It's like a forty
(11:27):
page supplement that's all about Kazook and Wookies and Chewbacca
and his family and everything about Wookie doom. Right, So
he's like, I've got this thing already, you know established
I love Wookies. Um, they didn't make the cut. I'm
a little sad about that. They're not gonna Kazuok is
not going to show up in an Empire strikes Back.
(11:48):
Let's let's build the entire special around wookies. It's basically
the one demand me George Lucas has that's it. I'll
be totally hands off from this point on which you
kind of was he totally wasn't. It was actually this
experience that apparently taught him to be the very hands
on a person that he is famous for being. It
came out of this Christmas special. Absolutely he was burned
(12:11):
and um had an iron grip after that on everything.
So here's some some of the folks behind it. Bruce Valanche,
famous uh TV writer. You probably seen him on Hollywood Squares.
Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas pinch On for a while?
I don't know, or was Thomas pinch On on Hollywood Squares?
I have no idea. I may be confabulating some stuff confounding. Yeah,
(12:35):
there's some kind of some sort going on. It sounds
like it. So Valanche was hired as a writer. A
guy named Lenny Rips was hired as a writer who
has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article he does.
His first quote was we were really excited because this
is Star Wars. How could it lose? Famous last words?
(12:56):
Who else was hired. There was a husband and wife team,
the welch Is, who are the parents of of folk
singer Gillian Welch. I'm a big fan of and I
had no idea that her parents they were producers slash
songwriters of the day. They were big on the variety
show scene, which would turn out to be a really
(13:16):
key cog in this whole experience. So I feel like,
right about here, Jerry should insert a needle coming off
of a record sound effect. Okay, thanks Jerry. So Chuck,
you just said singer songwriters. What would that have to
do with Star Wars. Yeah, well, actually, in this Star
Wars holiday special, for those of you hadn't seen it,
(13:39):
there are musical numbers. They decided from the outset that
there should be musical numbers. And the reason that they
decided that there should be musical numbers is because the
people who sold George Lucas and at the time it
was start the Star Wars Corporation was what it was
called um On. The idea of doing this TV special
was that everyone would love a variety show. Yeah, it
(14:00):
was the seventies. Great idea, let's do a variety show.
The problem was this apparently George Lucas didn't watch enough TV,
and he also overly trusted people who talked to him
because by yes, variety shows had dominated television for over
ten years, but it had come to an end. It
was getting stale. Yeah, we're talking to Carol Burnett show,
(14:23):
one of my favorite had just been canceled after eleven seasons.
Big Sonny and Chair had just had its last season.
I mean, what else, like he Hall was he? I
was still going on, probably still on solid golden yet
to come on and take up the mantel that that
would never variety show. Oh that was a little bit
(14:44):
and there was talking in between the songs. Remember the
Mandrell's Sisters show. I never watched that one. Well, it's
with that country chic thing that happened. Yeah, it was
a big deal in the it's kind of happening again.
I think, Oh, because of that dude, the guy who
won all the c m A Awards. I don't know,
he's like, he's he came along. He's like actually country.
(15:07):
His dad's like a coal miner for real from Kentucky.
I think I know you mean Chris was something. Yeah,
he's he is good. He's come along and been like,
what are you guys doing. Well, there's a revival in
like good country music. Again, that's like in the tradition
of Merle, Haggard and Cash and I guess that's probably
where the country sheet came from, because there was actually
good country going on. Yeah, Johnny Cash out a variety show,
(15:28):
did he really? Yeah? I knew they did, like a
Sunday singing thing like out in Virginia. Yeah, he had
his own variety show was actually pretty good. There's some
like really great performances. Do you know how many nerds
are like, get back to Star Wars? I know, I'm
so sorry. All right, So the Variety Show is is
dying sort of, and so they figure, what a great
time to take the biggest movie property on the planet
(15:51):
and wedge it into the variety show milieu. I don't
know if wedge is the right word. I think maybe
uh nestle it in there and then start hitting it
with the blunt edge of an axe until it mashes
into that crevice. You know. Because this is the time
when Fantasy Island had just started, um Mork and Mindy
(16:12):
was about to change things. Charlie's Angels was getting huge.
It basically television as we knew it from two whenever
the real world came along. Just escape as television is
what they called it was was starting and it was
the hip new thing. So basically, if they had turned
Han Solo and Princess Leiah and Luke Skywalker into maybe
(16:33):
you know, sexy detectives, it might have gone over even better.
But they went the other way. They decided to latch
onto this extraordinarily stale um genre of television and they
hired the best in the business, like there was there was.
There was a quote from I think Lenny RiPPs who
was saying, like we had literally a dream team, a
(16:53):
variety show dream team, and everybody was good, but there
were probably no bad worlders the Titanic he there, That's
a great quote. Yeah. The guy they hired too directed
initially was a dude named David A. Coomba, and he
had made his name for Welcome to the Fillmore East.
It was a concert documentary with Van Mortrison, Van Morrison
(17:14):
and the Birds in nine one, and he actually was
at usc Film School the same time as Lucas, even
though they didn't know each other, and um he only
ended up directing about three segments of the thing before
he quit yet before he walked off. Some say he
was actually let go, but we'll get to him in
a minute, and who replaced him. As as we get
(17:34):
along down this uh gross road, well let's let's take
a little break because I'm I'm overly excited, Okay, George, Alright,
(18:02):
So we've established most of the main players. We'll we'll
get to a few more. We should point out that, um,
Mark hamill And and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew,
they had no grounds to refuse to be on this. Basically, yeah,
pretty much. They were not huge, huge stars, yet they
could throw their weight around and say this is terrible
(18:23):
and I'm not doing it. They were. They were big
overnight because of Star Wars, for sure, but they weren't
to the adoring public. Back at the studio. They could
still be bossed around and this was the result of it.
And you can tell also, um, just from watching the
actual special, like Harrison Ford is not happy to be
there at any point. Um. Princess Leiah is clearly on drugs.
(18:49):
Uh was she on drugs at this point? She? If
you watch it, she's she's on drugs, Especially the ending scene.
Mark cambell It looks like he's happy to be there.
Act he was fine, but apparently he said no, I'm
I'm not doing a musical number. And if you watch
his part, wedging a musical number in there would have
been even more painful. Um. But they everybody who was
(19:13):
part of the actual Star Wars franchise that wasn't wearing
like a full body costume was like, I really wish
I wasn't here, And you can tell, oh yeah. In fact,
in the opening uh credit sequence, they're showing the picture
that you know, the faces of the people, and you
see Harrison Ford as if he's flying the Millennium Falcon,
and you can you can just hear the guy off
(19:34):
screen going now look at the camera and just give
a nod. Just look at the camera and give a nod.
And he finally you can tell he's piste off and
he looks up at the camera and just sort of
smirks yeah and points at the camera like okay, I'm
looking at the camera, and then goes back to what
he's doing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I felt bad for
him so early on Valanche and others did you did
you feel bad for him? Though? Really I mean, like,
(19:57):
come on, it's Harrison Ford's hans soul. He has to
go do this for like five days. Yeah, I felt
terrible for him. I think it's hilarious that they had
to do this, especially now. Well, early on, Valanche and
others knew that they may be in trouble because they
decided not to subtitle any of the Wookie dialogue and
they literally started after a brief opening scene setting it
(20:19):
up here. Here's the basic plot is, Han Solo is
trying to get Chewbacca back to Kazook in time for
Life Day so we can celebrate with his family. That's
the basis of the entire two Yes, the basis the
entire two hours. They encounter a space battle and they're delayed,
and the next two hours are kind of what's going
(20:39):
on while the delay is happening back on Kazoo, back
on Kazook. Because you hear, like, okay, well, Han Solo
and Chewbacca evading the Imperial Guard and all that stuff
for two hours. I would watch that. I would too. Ye,
that's not what they show. Killing time at the Wookie household,
that is what they show. Yeah, that's what they do.
(21:00):
It's people hanging out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him,
and then killing time while they wait for him to
come back. Literally, so um and so hold on. So
you say there's a setup, right, Yeah, that's the initial
set up, and then chuck, that's followed by this. Yeah,
it's followed by literally ten minutes, ten solid minutes of
(21:23):
incomprehensible Wookie speak. So let's let's join it for a second,
shall we. Yeah, let's all enjoy it. And again, you
(22:14):
said ten minutes, and you're not exaggerating, you're not being hyperbolic.
You can time it. That's it's ten minutes of wookie's
talking to each other with no subtitles. Fortunately, I couldn't
follow it at first, like I didn't even know who
it was. I thought it was might have been Chewbacca's
mom and dad. Oh yeah, that's a little brother. And
(22:36):
I don't find out until later when Mark Cambell shows
up via skype call and says, he really explains everything
that had just happened, Like, you're Chewbacca's father, itchy, you'r
Chewbacca's son, uh, lumpy lumpy, and you're Chewbacca's wife. Yeah,
thank you. So before everybody starts like freaking out. We
(22:58):
know that that's actually their nick names. Their real names are.
His father is a Ti chick cook, a Ti chick cook,
it's really hard to pronounce. Mulatto Buck is his wife,
and his son is Lumpo war Rump but as named
by Lucas. But yeah, but Lucas also named him Lumpy
Itchy and Mala so Um. They're all back there wringing
(23:23):
their hands, trying to figure out ways to pass the
time until they get word from Chewbacca that he's made
it to uh what is it, ketchuck z kazuok um
just ketchup ketchup or cats up if you're fancy um.
But Chewbacca is having trouble getting back to Katchuk because
(23:44):
there's Kazuki, because there's a blockade by the Empire and
they're looking for rebels, specifically Chewbacca, who I didn't realize this.
He's the most famous Wookie of all. Did you know that? Yeah,
of course I didn't know that. Well, I mean he's
the only one that really appears in the movie bes
I mean we're seeing, like, you know, these people's view
(24:04):
of the universe. What about back on Zook, Yeah, he
might have just been a fly by night wookie, right, yeah,
but not the case very famous wookie. Yeah, and he
really loved it, like soak in his fame. Alright, So
he realizes there's a problem. Valanche. He goes to Lucas
and it's like, I don't know, man, this is your world,
but it may not be the strongest thing to do
(24:28):
to set this in wookie Land and have all this
incomprehensible dialogue. And he says he was met with a
glacial stare. Uh. Well, he put it a little differently
than that. Well, he said glacial stair. He did. The
glacial stair that he got was for this quote. He said,
these people just talking what sounds like fat people having
an orgasm. He goes, if you want, you can set
(24:50):
up a tape recorder in my bedroom and I'll do
all of the follying for it. Yeah. He's a large guy,
he is, so uh that's what got the glacial stare.
But Valanche later said that from this, there was one
development meeting that Lucas attended and it was here's the
Wookie Bible, tell me what you got. And Valanche said
he and the other writers and producers and director were
(25:12):
just kind of throwing ideas and George Lucas would either
say like, no, that doesn't work, give him a glacial stare,
or say, yes, that's exactly it. Yes, let's make this
a variety show. Yeah, And there was a little bit
of um background there. The cantina players in the band
had appeared on other variety shows at that point, and
(25:33):
I think it went over a fairly well, just as
a short segment on like the Richard Pryor Variety Show
or Donnie Marie um Man. There were a lot of
variety shows. But that's what I'm saying. It was that
was television. That's what you did, like the Birds um
the The show had its course and then it became
a variety show. It was just everybody love variety shows.
(25:58):
By this time, though, everybody was sick of I D
shows and so it really was a terrible choice. In fact,
they even hired a couple of writers from Shields and Yarnell,
which I hadn't heard of it. Oh yeah, I watched it.
It was creepy, this mind couple who had their own
variety show, and they figured these two will be great
(26:19):
because they are used to working without words, right, so
and so there is a certain logic to the variety show.
It's not that's just that variety shows were popular at
the time. Somebody was like, well, Wookie's you don't understand
what they're saying. So this is all going to be
very physical. So these people who who did what is
it Shields and Yard, Now, yeah, that that's a perfect choice.
(26:41):
That that makes complete sense. You can see this whole
this whole process of leading up to the point where
it was produced and shot and everything a series of like, oh,
we have this problem, Well here's a fix, but that
leads to another problem. Well we'll fix it with this,
and and no one stepping back and being like, all
we've done is create a series of problems that are
(27:01):
going to come together and make one extraordinarily large problem
that will become legendary. No one did that, and so
the whole thing was was made. That's right. And it
eventually airs on November seventeen, night Friday at eight pm
Eastern time. That's right, and Nielsen ratings it um attracted
(27:23):
thirteen million viewers just the second hour, just in the US.
It aired in six or seven countries total. Yeah, but
no one cares about that. I guess not, because none
of those are on the internet, you know. Uh, it
finished second to the Love Boat in the second I'm
sorry from eight to nine, and in the next hour
actually finished behind part two of a mini series about
(27:43):
Pearl Harbor starring Angie Dickinson. So it didn't even win
their respective hours. No, thirteen million, that's that's not bad.
The thing is, apparently if you look at the Nielsen
ratings graph for the first hour, yeah we know about
that graph. It's okay, yeah, we do. Then after a
very important part, which we'll talk about soon. Um, it
(28:04):
just drops off at the end of the first hour,
and that actually probably made the executives at CBS cringe
for a number of reasons. Number one is this special
was originally supposed to just be an hour, but so
many advertisers wanted to sign on that they extended it
to two hours. And it shines through you can totally
(28:26):
tell that this thing was never supposed to I think
an hour might have been stretching it. To tell you
the truth, it's thirty minutes of content forty if you're generous,
an hour, and then two hours. It becomes one of
the worst things that was ever put on television. All right, well,
let's take a break and then we'll talk a little
bit more about the actual um uh even I don't
(28:48):
want to call it content, but it is content in
the strictest definitions. Right after this, alright, so the show itself,
(29:17):
we've given you the main plot line, which again is
that Chewy is trying to get back to his home
planet to celebrate life Day with this family. Right, that's it,
and again we almost barely see Chewy. Yeah, the rest
is his family on because look waiting for him to
come back for a life day. Yeah. So, um, some
(29:37):
of the various things they did, they were guest stars.
There was Harvey Corman from The Carol Burnett Show, one
of my all time favorites him or Carol Carol Burnett
Show both. He's great. Yeah, he actually if you watch
what he's doing, you're like, this is comedy genius. For apparently,
he too was like the only one on set that
was bringing levity. He was joking around and kind of
(29:58):
kept spirits up good for that's what I say. And
he had three three different parts. Yeah, he played uh uh,
well I don't even know the names. Actually, we could
look him up, but he played a. He played a
Julia child like cook. There's an actual cooking segment, a
long one, a very long cooking segment where Chewbacca's wife
(30:21):
Um makes Banta stew to kill some time, to kill
some time because there was on her planet and in
our living room. Yeah, so Harvey Corman is in Drag
is a fore armed Julia childlike uh TV chef and
I think it's Gormanda. Is her name Gormanda? That makes
total sense. He also plays Um. There's this one weird
(30:44):
bit where Chewbacca's son tries to figure out a way
to trick the stormtroopers that the Empire had come and
kind of because of the blockade, raided the house and
other properties. So he tries to trick them by I think,
rigging a calm link to speak in a differ voice.
So he has to watch the instruction manual. He watches
(31:06):
an instruction video which was Harvey Kitel as a robot. Oh,
it would have been wonderful lit big Harvey Kitel, Harvey
Carvey Corman, man Haye murders someone in the middle of
the instruction Harvey Corman. And then the final role he
had was as a a bar patron in the cantina
(31:27):
that drinks. He has a hole in the top of
his head like a volcano where he pours his drinks
and that's how he drinks. And he he loves be Arthur.
Did we mention be Arthur was in it? B Arthur
is not only in it, Chuck. She sings a song.
She does. She is thenowns to everyone she manages or
maybe owns the owner. Yeah, the what's the mas what
(31:48):
moss deaf cantina? Uh? No, most deaf is a rapper?
Oh yeah, I think you mean Moss Eisley. Yes, yes,
that cantina. She's the owner. B Arthur is the owner,
the author of the Golden Girls, but in this case
the Arthur of Maud, because, as one of the people
who wrote one of the articles we based this on
points out, she's just basically playing Maud as the owner
(32:09):
of the cantina. Yeah, and her song comes because um,
they basically say, there's a lockdown, so you gotta call
last call um at your bar. So she calls last
call by singing a song to everyone. Right, and again,
we can't possibly have the script lead anywhere else but
Chewbacca's house while his family waits for it so all
(32:30):
this takes place as part of a public service announcement
basically broadcast by the Empire about how immoral life on
tattooing is. So let's go see what's going on in
the mas Eisley Cantina as it's being shut down for curfew. Alright,
this is incomprehensible, but it goes on. Um, so they're
(32:53):
in it. There's also Art Carney, Yes, the Honeymoon as family,
the star of the whole thing. Really, he has the
most lines, I would say, the most comprehensible line. Right.
So he plays a trader, a human trader um that is, uh,
recently been with Han Solo and Chewy and actually gets
to kazuok and says they're on the way. It's all good. Yeah,
(33:16):
a trader not trade toor Yeah, traders in trades humans
for you know money. No, he he sells goods, Yeah,
a trader. He doesn't trade humans. Yeah he's in the
human trade. He No, he isn't. Really he trades humans
like he sells humans. Looked it up in the Star
(33:38):
Wars Encyclopedia said that he was in the human trade. Huh.
So in this Christmas special, apparently they sanitized his his
background because he's basically just selling like gadgets and novelties
and stuff like that to the Wookies and the Empire
who were occupying the area. Yes, he comes bearing gifts
because he's a friend of Chewbacca's family. Yeah, so he
(34:00):
comes bearing gifts. One of the gifts he gives is
a UM sort of like a little digital insert to
a Oh, I guess you would call it a virtual
reality hair dryer, hair dryer, like a beauty shop hair dryer.
He gives it to Grandpa Itchy. Grandpa Itchy UM sits
(34:21):
under this hair dryer, pops in this uh digital cassette,
and it can only be described as softcore porn. Apparently,
the writers who were interviewed for this said that was
totally the intent. They were trying to get what amounted
to softcore porn that would pass the sensors. So it's
all m. You can't even say it's innuendo. It's too
(34:44):
obvious in overt for innuendo. Instead, it's just it's just
it's just gross. It's really gross. Um. Diane Carroll, Yes
she is UM. A Vegas staple shows up and starts
basically tantalizing UM. Grandpa Itchy, who again, this is Chewbacca's
(35:05):
elderly father who now engages in some sort of well
he's he's watching virtual reality pornography now, and this is
a pretty lengthy segment in and of itself. Well yeah,
and she literally says to him like, now I can
see her really excited. Yeah, it's pretty rough to watch. Yeah,
So then you've got another musical number because also again
(35:26):
he shutters, yeah, it's really strange, all right, So there's
also ah, I know, it seems like we're jumping around,
but it's it's so mind blowing, not like this is
pretty much like blow for blow. Um. Actually I forgot
earlier on in in the in the special Um, there's
one of my favorite sequences is when Grandpa Itchy goes
(35:48):
over to Lumpy and basically sets up remember the the
hologram chessboard that they played in A New Hope, Yeah,
basically kind of sets that up and says, here, just
play this. He pushes the button when is clearly at
nineteen seventies cassette recorder and another uh like it's like
a Cirque de sol acid trip um gymnast routine happens
(36:14):
in front of the kid's eyes. And again this all
just it's not like it shows a snippet. They showed
the entire segments, like five six ten minutes long of
all of these things. So you would think, Okay, they've
gone to this hologram well a couple of times, why
not go to it again? Well they do. They do
to kill more time. While the Imperial Guard is ransacking
(36:36):
their house. Um, Art Carney apparently, I guess it's trying
to get one of the Imperial Guard, the leader I think,
or one of the leaders who looks like somebody from
Spaceballs by the way, very much so. Um. And the
writer of the Vanity Fair article, by the way said, um,
this this is so incomprehensible. The specialist George Lucas didn't
even have the schwartz with them method time. So anyway,
(37:00):
our Carney's distracting this uh Imperial leader. Um, while they're
ransacking the Wookiees house Chewbacca's house with a hologram, and
this hologram instead of being an acrobat or Diane Carroll
or any kind of porn or anything like that, is
Jefferson Starship. And they decide that they're going to play
(37:22):
Light the Sky on Fire, which apparently is about UFOs.
It's a little music video. Basically it's a pretty Yeah,
it's the predecessor to like video kill the radio Starr
you can tell um. And again it is the whole
lengthy song, the whole thing. So every time that somebody's like,
we need to escape mentally from what's going on here
(37:44):
in our house, let's go into the video world, it's
not just and they don't cut back and forth. It's okay,
here's five minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song. And
even the Jefferson Starship guys um were like, yeah, it's
sort of a weird trip, like we didn't get it,
but we did it right. They gave us some money
(38:05):
and some cocaine. Well probably, so we said, yeah, chuck.
I think though, um, there yet another segment like this
is actually widely regarded as the high point of the
whole thing. So there is a cartoon actually yeah that
Lump Lumpy watches Yeah Lump, He's like, the Imperial Guard
(38:25):
is still ransacking my house. I think I'll entertain myself
by watching a cartoon on my little um. I don't
know what. I guess it was an iPad and uh,
he watches this cartoon and it's it's actually remarkable for
a number of reasons. It's the best part of the
whole special generally agreed upon as such, not just us.
(38:46):
And it introduces Boba Fett. It's the first time Boba
Fett ever makes an appearance in the Star Wars universe. Yeah,
it's actually not a bad And you can't find it
in the the one version I told you to watch.
They removed it for copyright, but they didn't watch a
separate version. You can find it on its own. Yeah,
and it's, Um, it's very much reminiscent of like the
cartoon style of the day, like a he Man or
something even even but it's even a little more artsy
(39:10):
than that. Yeah. But it does have a plot that
you can follow that makes sense as a Star Wars thing,
and it introduces Boba Fette, like you said, And um,
it's actually not bad. It's like Luke and R two
and C three p O. Yeah, and there's like they
crash on a planet or something. Yeah, and Han and
Jewry you're in it. And it's the first time we
see in Darth Vader. It's the first time we see
(39:30):
Boba Fette. And that he is uh that he is
just doing whatever he can do for money. Like Luke
trusts him at first, c three pos like you sure
you should trust him this quick and he's like, oh,
three p o you and your non trusting ways, and
then it turns out he's selling them out to the
dark side. So it's it's basically Boba Fett is an
allegory for George Lucas himself. Um, so the cartoon comes
(39:55):
and goes, and that was the thing that came at
about the end of the first hour mark, and after
at everybody just turned off their television sets. Yeah, I
don't remember. Did you watch this when it came up? Yeah?
I remember watching it, but I don't remember much about it,
like if I made it through it all. I mean
it was I was seven and it was on until ten,
so I probably didn't make it through it all. Um,
(40:17):
you're probably disturbed. Who knows, I just remember that. I'll
have to ask my brother. He might have a memory
of this. Oh, Betty does I'm sure he met everybody
afterwards or something like that. You know it has a picture.
Well he was ten at that point, so cynicism had,
you know, become a thing in his life probably by then,
didn't that when cynicism kicks in he Scott, holding out
(40:37):
the fourteen fifteen Yeah maybe so so um chuck, the
whole thing finally does in. And actually there's a guy
his name is Nathan Raban, he writes over at the
A V Club. He had a great quote. He basically
said that one of the great redeeming values of this
um this special is that it does eventually end. Yeah,
you know what the first part of the quote is,
(40:57):
I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written in directed
by a sentient bag of cocaine. And like, go read
his his review of the Star Wars Holiday Special, because
he goes on to describe exactly what that must have been,
like the development meeting where the bag of cocaine is
pacing back and forth talking about what should happen. That's
what it feels like. But it doesn't, and it ends
(41:20):
even more. It takes this bizarre two hours and wraps
it up in just a nice bizarre bow. Yeah, so
what happens is eventually Han Solo should we say spoiler alert,
Eventually Han Solo and Chewy make it to the planet.
They park on the far side of the planet because
they know the uh the Imperial forces are there and
the exercise will do Chewy good, so they have to
(41:43):
hike over there. They eventually make it back home. Uh,
they find a storm the stormtroopers at their house. Um,
their tree hut. Yeah, which, by the paintings that set
this up, I don't think we mentioned I don't even
call him Matt paintings. It looks like someone painted something
on the wall and they just like put a camera
in front of it pretty much. Yeah. So they get
(42:04):
back and um, Chewbacca, Han Solo hides around the corner
of Chewbacca steps in front of his son to protect him.
Han Solo jumps out, and the stormtrooper trips over a
pile of logs and falls over the balcony and dies
in a holiday special. So they wouldn't even not only
could he not shoot first with Grido, but they couldn't
(42:28):
even have him like wrestle the storm trooper and throw
him off. He trips over a log and Han Solo
has his hands thrown up like wasn't me. It might
also been a banana peel, you know, but again, Uh.
This is basically produced by Vaudevillians starring Vaudevillians. Why not
have the one death take place from basically what it
(42:49):
mounts to somebody slipping on a banana peel exactly. It's
a perfect way to end it. So that's uh. That
guy basically represents the end of the imperial threat for
the rest of life. And um, we we then see
Life Day being celebrated, which is celebrated by lots of
wookies assembling in what looks like a giant Olden Mills portrait. Um,
(43:13):
and all of them are wearing red robes. And I
know I'm up talking, and it's because my mind is
still having trouble like wrapping around this. And then um,
Princess Leia comes out with C three P O is
Mark Hamill There, the whole gang zerif okay, the whole
gangs there. And then they all gather around to hear
(43:35):
a great quote from Princess Leiah, which we will read
um verbatim. This holiday is yours, but we all share
with you the hope that this day brings us closer
to freedom, into harmony, and to peace. No matter how
different we appear, we're all the same in our struggle
against the powers of evil and darkness. I hope that
(43:55):
this day will always be a day of joy in
which we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage, and
more than anything else, our love for one another. This
is the promise of the Tree of Life que song, right,
And we should also point out the tree of Life
has never been mentioned up to this point. Takes a
sudden appearance at the end. And when you said que song,
(44:16):
by que Song, you mean Princess Leiah starts singing. Yeah.
And apparently that was one of the big contingencies on
Carrie Fischer being involved. She's going through the phase where
she was like, I kind of like singing. Bruce Valanche
calls it her Joni Mitchell period. Yeah, and she somehow
convinced them to let her sing as Princess Leiah. And
she does. And again I've said that she looks like
(44:39):
she's on drugs. This is the point where she really
does look like she's on drugs. And it's not just
me Um other writers who have written reviews of this.
It's really obvious that she possibly smoked a decent amount
of pot before she shot this shot this scene. But
she sings, Oh, okay, it's fine, it's just the fact it, Um,
(45:01):
Princess Leigh is singing. And actually Bruce Valanche had a
really great quote too. He says that, um, she very
much wanted to show this side of her talent, and
there was general dismay because this was not what we
wanted Princess Leia to be doing. She did it anyway.
So the whole thing ends with her singing this song
about life day, which is set loosely to the John
(45:23):
Williams Star Wars theme. Uh So along the way, the director,
original director quit, A new director, Steve Binder was hired
to finish the job and bring it in. Uh, and
he did over the original one million dollar budget, of course.
Always Uh, he did bring it in and um at
this point George Lucas had uh. He was he was
(45:46):
working on Empire Strikes Back. He didn't know what was
going on. He wasn't around for the shoot. No, it
wasn't until it aired. I think that he actually saw it. Yes,
and it was a travesty obviously, if you haven't noticed
that by now. Critics hated it hours, fans really hated it.
Everybody hate The people who were in it hated it.
Lucas hated it. You've been. Harvey Corman secretly hated it.
(46:07):
Even Harvey Kitel hated Actually he loved it. But Lucas
has been asked over the years about it a lot,
and he doesn't talk about it much. But in two
thousand five, and I don't buy this for a second,
he says, Um, it was an interview, he said special
from I really didn't have much to do with us.
You know that part is true. I can't remember what
(46:29):
network it was even on, but it was a thing
that they did. That's a lie. There's no way he
doesn't know. That was CBS. Uh. We kind of just
let them do it. I believe that it was done
by I can't even remember who the group was, but
they were variety TV guys. I'm sure he remembers a
few of them. We let them use the characters and stuff,
and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but
(46:49):
you learned from those experiences. I think they even used
some of the footage from the movie. At the end,
it looks like some space like a highlight reel. Yeah
the gang well, and during the um it looked like
some of the they had some insert shots of like
imperial cruisers and Thai fighters and stuff that. Remember when
(47:11):
when Chewbacca like leans back and puts his hands behind it,
that's in there. It's it's like a it's just a
highlight reel from the movie saying like I feel like this,
go see the movie. Well, and also that means it
doesn't match the look of the rest of it at all. Yeah,
that's true. It's just sort of inserted. They tried. They
definitely tried. Um, And George Lucas is totally full of
it because in seven he told star Log magazine that
(47:34):
the Christmas Special would be out on video cassette very soon,
and in two thousand seven, two years after that quote,
you just read where he's like, I don't even know
what you're talking about. Basically, um. He apparently considered releasing
the Christmas Special as a bonus on the the DVDs
of the first three right, but did not didn't And
(47:55):
apparently Carrie Fisher told Lucas that if you want me
to do um DVD extra commentary commentary, then I want
a clean, original copy of the Holiday Special, So why
go ahead so I can play at parties when I
want people to leave. It's pretty great, it is so
uh and there is one of those clean copies is
(48:17):
floating around out there, so you can watch this in
it in its entirety. Some of it, like the cartoon,
was removed due to copyright infringement and that kind of stuff,
but as as the case with the rest of the Internet,
you can just go find it elsewhere and piece it together.
There's also the original ads that aired in Baltimore that
are just fascinating. Those are always fun gm ads where
(48:41):
one of the guys who's in quality control is he says,
did you watch it? I don't think I saw that.
He goes, um, we really care about these cars and
that's no job man on a GM and he's like,
it's serious. They're trying to be hip. Yeah. Um, it's
a pretty good stuff. Here's my final thought on it.
I love it. It does not taint my Star Wars
(49:03):
experience or my love for the franchise, and I'm glad
it is out there because it it's a it's a
fun little stain that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I
think it adds to it actually, because it's campy and awful,
and I don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it.
(49:23):
I'm with you. You like it? Oh yeah, I mean
I watched it twice. I wouldn't watch it a second
I wouldn't have made it through the first time. I
let me take that back, as I'm a pro, so
I would have made it through the first time. I
wouldn't have watched it a second time if I wasn't.
There wasn't something about it, and I figured out I
think the thing that I like the most about it
is Lumpy, Chewbacca's son, played by an actress named Patty Maloney,
(49:46):
who frankly is hands down the best actor in the
entire thing. She like her responses and everything. It's just awesome.
I think my favorite parts are, uh, well, there's a
great Wilhelm scream trips over the law. Jerry would not
have noticed it. Uh And then there's a part where
(50:06):
all the wiki dialogue you can't understand, but there's clearly
one part where we're Itchy and Lumpy are having exchange
where Lumpy, you can make it out, goes yeah, yeah, yeah,
I noticed that, but it's covered up. But someone was like,
we have to have at least one exchange where you
sort of know what they're saying or they were like,
I think she just said I love you. Should we
(50:27):
have them redo it? And then directors like no, I
want to go and Chuck. There's one other thing that
I figured out from watching this. It's not readily apparent
the whole thing is made all the more odd, and
that there's situation after situation after situation where we, as
normal audiences, were trained to expect the laugh track, but
there's not a laugh track. Had there been a laugh track,
(50:51):
it what it might have been less bizarre, But the
fact that it's missing just makes your agitates the mind.
So it's this whole additional element that it is weird.
I never thought about that. There's just weird moments of
silence all throughout it. Yeah, like when Art Carney's doing
this thing, Yeah, telling jokes. Yeah, Okay, I agree with you, Chuck,
don't take things too seriously. I think that's the great
(51:13):
lesson in this. Yeah, and then's the lesson of life
day it is and in two thousand seven Rift Tracks
Great Mystery Science Theater three thousand Guys Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett,
and Kevin Murphy uh provided audio commentary for the full
version of the special. So try and go grab that
if you can as well, so you can. It's on
the site because it's great. I think it's like eight
(51:34):
bucks and those guys are awesome, and at least I
think Corbett listens to us. So, hey, Corbett, you got
anything else? No, No, I think we did this. There's
some good stuff. Go read the Vanity Fair article. Uh
Han Solo Comedy Hour. There's a book called How Star
Wars Conquered the Universe that has a very interesting chapter
(51:56):
about this. That's where we found it asserted that George
Lucas never said that he matched this thing with a
sledge hammer. Um. And there's also an entire website dedicated
to its Star Wars Holiday Special dot com. Yeah, and
if you want to know more about the Star Wars
Holiday special, we have a ton of heart Star Wars
stuff on how Stuff Works by the way, Yeah, we
have cool, um sort of fun articles about the Death
(52:18):
Star and Lightsabers videos with the Holly Fry from stuff
you missed in history class? Yeah, who she knows her stuff?
She does. Um. So you can just type star Wars
in the search bar how stuff Works dot com and
it will bring up some cool stuff for you. Since
I said search bar, its time for listener mail. Hey guys,
just finished listening to the Voytage Manuscript podcast. Found it's
(52:39):
super interesting, especially the theories on its definition or origin.
No Josh mentioned Chuck sory, but being drug induced somewhat
surprising or even unlikely given the language in the manuscript
follows linguistic laws only founded in the past one years.
But if you think about it, it's a tough. It's
tough to stray away from familiar structures, especially for some
(53:00):
thing like language. I think back to when I was
younger and friends invented their own languages, or even in
writing a song or poetry. Creativity can sometimes be limited
by what we know. Uh, So I just thought I
contribute that the conversation nice. Thanks big, thanks for all
you guys do. I found the podcast after moving to
San Diego in the last few years for some noise
around my apartment, so basically we were blocking out noise
(53:24):
we do that, which I love, uh and then as
a way to get through traffic on my commute home
from work. You guys are far more interesting and enjoyable
than television and YouTube videos. Sure, I've listened to hundreds
and will continue to listen to hundreds more Keep on
Keeping on. That is from Amy J. Moffatt. Thanks a lot,
Amy in San Diego. Does that mean like place of
the whales in German or something like that. Uh yeah.
(53:48):
If you want to get in touch of this, you
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